Race Recap: Jay Marmont

2012 was a hell of a roller-coaster ride for Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Jay Marmont. After a disastrous outdoors season, Marmont focused his energies on defending his premier class Australian supercross title.

He ultimately achieved his goal and ended the year with the red plate, but it didn’t come easy. We caught up with Jay after he wrapped up the championship at Newcastle to find out how he’s feeling… and caught a hint of what we can expect in the future.

Jay Marmont held the red plate throughout the series from start to finish. Image: Simon Makker/Makkreative.com.

First up, congratulations, mate! How were the nerves coming into tonight?

Man, before the main event I was in the truck trying to catch some shut-eye and calm the nerves. I looked down at my chest and I could literally see my heart thumping against my chest. I think it’s because I wanted it so badly after where I was at the start of the year, to being injured through the motocross.

A lot of people wrote me off, so I put my head down and did a lot of training while everyone was still focused on the motocross. I think I caught a lot of people off-guard at the opening round at Dubbo, but I feel my riding went off the boil at round three at Toowoomba where I finished fourth. I actually suffered a thumb injury two weeks ago and even though I toughed it out I didn’t have the pace to run with Chad [Reed]. I was still pumped to finish second tonight and win the championship.

What did you do to your thumb?

It was just a simple little practice crash. I bent it backwards and I think I might have either sprained it or cracked a bone. I don’t think it’s a big deal but I go for x-rays on Monday. It might need a couple of months to heal, but I’ve got all the time in the world now (laughs). It’ll give me an excuse to sit back, enjoy the championship win and make me put my feet up for Christmas.

When you came to Monster Energy Kawasaki you were given a job to win championships but that obviously didn’t go to plan during the MX Nationals. Does it feel like there’s a big weight off your chest now?

It was hard, you know. Everyone questioned my motives leaving Yamaha after being so successful with Dacka and the team, and at times I questioned myself when I was injured and things weren’t going right. This team really got behind me and believed in me 100 per cent and they answered everything I asked of them as far as supercross testing goes.

I’ve gone through so many bikes practising and so many sets of suspension – a lot more than the average rider would – to find the perfect set-up. There have been countless hours training and testing, so I’m really grateful to win this championship both for myself and the team.

Marmont will be taking delivery of some new parts to further improve his Kawasaki heading into 2013. Image: Simon Makker/Makkreative.com.

It’s no secret that you’re a hard guy to work with as far as testing goes. Is that because you know exactly what you want about every aspect of the bike?

I’m definitely not the easiest bloke to work with and I know that. At the start in motocross season the team gave me what I wanted, but they still kind of had doubts and I probably wasn’t putting it as direct as what I would normally, so there was a lot of back-and-forth.

I knew exactly what I wanted out of the bike for supercross and I still feel there’s a little bit more room for improvement with the bike. Kawasaki has put forward some requests to Japan for some special parts to help with the bike development next year. We’ve got guys from KYB coming over in December to help with the testing of the new air fork, which should be awesome. I’m happy to be with the team for the next couple of years.

Wait – a couple of years now?

Well it’s only one year at the moment, but we’ll have to wait and see. If everything goes well in 2013 I’ll look to end my career with Kawasaki.

Basically I’ll kick back until the end of this month, then KYB come over, then my new mechanic arrives from Europe. We’ll get into testing early and set up the practice bike and count the days down to the start of the MX Nationals. I may even go to the US and do some races before the Australian season fires up, but we’ll have to wait and see how that pans out.